A/N: Just a little something I threw together for Shirou Day. Don't be alarmed, but I've really been wanting to show off the modified aria I came up with for Ruby for a while now, and I figured it would be nice to give a little spoiler on something that we might not encounter for a long while yet. This isn't anything final, and it might not ever end up being an actual scene in the story, but I thought it would be fun. The aria I came up with is a mixture of the traditional chant (bone of my sword) and the literal English translation (body is made out of swords).

I might just end up adding it to the end of next chapter as its omake once I post it so this doesn't clunk up the chapter order.

Enjoy, and have an awesome SWORD day!


Remnant of a Dream: #SHIROUDAY2022 Special

In a parallel future in the Kaleidoscope…

They were surrounded. Ruby's mind was whirring as fast as she could possibly make it go, and she felt herself burning up for the first time since she'd mastered Reinforcing her body. Usually, she didn't abuse it, nor did she let it overpower the healing factor of her Aura, but Ruby was desperate.

Weiss, Blake, and Yang were scattered behind her in various states of disrepair. Weiss was bleeding from a head wound and breathing heavily as she leaned on Myrtenaster, which was covered in frosted black, the result of abusing so many forms of Dust all at once. Blake was barely conscious and hanging off of Yang, who was holding onto her side that was slowly growing redder and redder by the minute.

"How pitiful. You've only killed me three times."

Ruby grit her teeth and stared at Salem with burning hatred. "I'll kill you dead. Don't worry. After all you've done, it's only fair."

Salem smirked and held her hands out. "In the state you're in? I'd rather let you go and give you the hope of defeating me eventually than destroy you right here and now." A wind that hadn't existed before began blowing through the clearing filled with smoking Grimm bodies, and Salem laughed. "But it wouldn't be fair to delay your punishment for attacking me, would it?"

"Ruby!" Weiss' weak voice reached me from behind, and I snapped my gaze towards her. "Ruby. Please. It's okay. Don't sacrifice yourself."

"What are you talking about?" I yelled, the wind growing louder by the second. "If I don't do something now, none of us will survive!"

"You're steaming! You're using your abilities too much!" Ruby flinched as she saw Weiss look up at glare at her with tears in her eyes. "If we lived while you died, I could never forgive myself!"

The wind was howling now, and Ruby whirled her head around to see Salem gathering all the Grimm essence around them into a giant ball of black light. She was laughing at their pain. Laughing at their despair. Ruby cursed. "Damn it!"

She couldn't stop it. Nothing she Forged would be able to do anything to stop something as big as all the magical energy Salem was currently collecting.

"What can I do?" Ruby cried. "What can I do?!"

Then, a voice from her past, a voice she now knew because it had once been her own, echoed in her head a phrase that she had already taken to heart a long time ago. "If you can't beat it yourself, imagine something that you can beat it with."

Ruby widened her eyes. Of course. She still had that. She'd never tried before. But she knew that it was possible. She had his world, now her world. She'd seen it in her dreams, seen him use it. That hill filled with infinite swords, and the place where she pulled all of her weapons from.

Ruby couldn't hear herself anymore, but she didn't need to. Her soul was ringing, and her aria would be able to pierce any magic, because she was rejecting the world. She rejected this fate. If she was going to die, she wasn't going to die here.

Ruby slammed Crescent Roses blade into the ground and began to chant

"I am the dust of my soul."

Salem widened her eyes as her own gale was disrupted by a powerful surge of mana around Ruby.

"My body is of roses, and my heart is a forge."

"Stop at once!" Salem shouted. "I will kill you here and now! There won't be anything of you left! I will kill you and everyone you've ever known and loved!"

Ruby only stared back as her silver eyes began to smoke.

"I have created over a thousand weapons."

Salem raised both hands the giant spear of darkness snapped into existence above her. She yelled in anger as she thrust it right at Ruby, who didn't flinch at all. Instead, Ruby kept one hand on Crescent Rose to keep herself grounded as she raised her other hand and invoked, "Rho Aias!"

A brilliant translucent-red barrier burst into existence and expanded five times as dozens of white petals peeled off and scattered with the wind. The spear slammed into the first layer and it immediately broke, which caused Ruby to grit her teeth as her sleeves burst away and her skin bruised.

"Unaware of the past, nor aware of the future!"

It was getting harder to chant with every second, but Ruby powered through the pain. The spear broke the second layer, and Ruby muffled her scream as her fingers broke.

"Have overcome death, to keep chasing my dream!"

"Quiet! Stay quiet!" Salem commanded as her own arms were outstretched in an effort to push on the spear she had made. The third layer broke, and this time Salem relished the sound of Ruby's anguished scream. Ruby knew she was running out of time as her arm's bones fractured.

"I-I live to save. This is my legacy!"

Salem widened her eyes as she felt the magic around Ruby increase tenfold, and she shouted in frustration just as the fourth layer broke and Ruby gave a bloodied grin with her last chant.

"My whole existence was an Unlimited Weapons Forge!"

And the world disappeared in a flurry of snow and rose petals. Salem's spear dissipated alongside Ruby's Rho Aias.

When the flurry and petals settled, Salem looked around in awed anger at the split world around her. The sky was shattered in two, one clear as day and the other dark as dawn with the shattered moon hanging above. Swords, blades, weapons, and guns of all kinds stood as markers all around, stuck into ground that was covered in melting snow and rose petals.

"What have you done?!" Salem growled.

Ruby planted her scythe into the ground and rested against it as she held her broken arm close. "My world," Ruby said. "My soul. You have no power here."

Salem sneered and waved her hands as she gathered some more mana. Salem then frowned as she found it more difficult to do so, and she felt a little fatigued as if she were drawing from her own life force. "Tch. A funny little trick."

Ruby pushed off Crescent Rose and stared at Salem defiantly.

"Tell me, Salem. Do you have enough magic to stay alive?"

Salem scowled. "More than enough to erase a bug like you."

And a wall of weapons met a rush of magic.